As with all property prices, it is important to distinguish between land value and capital improvements.

Land value has been increasing, because land in desirable locations is in limited supply and is not able to be added to (with minor exceptions). This means that land is a monopoly, which is why land-owners are able to extract economic rents from the land far beyond what other investments can afford, compared to the work you put in.

There's a fantastic book which explains this, and Scott Alexander's blog has a book review (by someone else) which is an easy summary: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progr...

It helps explain why we have poverty in the midst of extreme wealth.